Archive for February, 2015

I’ve done Alice in Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes (I think that may have come out the best), Star Trek, Leave it to Beaver, and more.

There is a significant difference between the first two above and the last two.

The first two are public domain works (well, most of the original Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes, for sure…that’s a bit complicated), and the latter two are still under copyright protection in the USA.

The United States Copyright Office specifically lists a parody as something which has been found to fall under “Fair Use”, meaning that authorization from the rightsholder need not be obtained.

Now, it’s important to note, that this is not a funny version…a parody need not be funny to be protected, or to be a parody. It needs to be, as I understand it, an imitation which would not be confused with the original, but comments on it (typically through some sort of warping of the original).

Fan films and fanfic are often characterized by people as not being for commercial purposes. It is possible to have protection even for something done for commercial purposes…look, for example, at parodies on Saturday Night Live or Mad Magazine, both of which are commercial enterprises.

So, why does all of this matter for readers?

First, Vimeo took the video down…then quite a bit later, YouTube did (despite it being in their most popular videos for days, which is quite a feat).

Producer Adi Shankar said in part that having the video was protected by “free speech”, and parody.

That’s something I hear from time to time…that when Amazon chooses not to carry a book, it’s a violation of free speech.

It’s not part of the constitutional of free speech.

Legal “free speech” has to do with what the government does, not what private companies do.

It means that the government can’t shut down your parody, based on current case law, as I understand it (I’m not a lawyer). A private company can decide not to carry something…pretty much for whatever reason they want.

As I looked into this more, it looks like YouTube may have taken it down because of the use of the music, which is not the original version.

That’s different…it’s quite a bit harder to argue that the use of a melody is a parody of that melody.

Weird Al Yankovic gets the rights to the music, from what I know (although, and I don’t know this, that might not have always been the case).

Vimeo and YouTube have no legal obligation to keep any video available.

My interpretation would be that Power/Rangers was legal…but there are tons of legal videos that YouTube doesn’t carry.

Moving this to books…

You can write a parody of something.

You can publish that parody.

Nobody has to sell it to the public for you or distribute it to the public for you.

You can write fan fiction.

If it criticizes a work, you can distribute it…the government is not going to arrest you for it.

That doesn’t mean a bookstore (brick and mortar, like I used to manage, or internet, like Amazon) has to make it available.

I found this Huffington Post interview with producer Adi Shankar important and interesting (and, incidentally, NSFW…Not Safe For Work, having profanity):

“I moved to America when I was 16 because this country was f*cking awesome, because of the First Amendment, because of freedom of speech…”

Absolutely.

However, we do have to be clear about what that means.

We can’t claim that free speech forces a commercial enterprise to sell something or give it away…the First Amendment constricts the government, not companies.

I’ve also seen this referred to as a “bootleg” (it’s in the page name at the HuffPo).

It’s not that, either.

A bootleg is an unauthorized recording done in a covert manner…someone records a movie in a movie theatre, for example, and then distributes that version.

Bootleg used to refer to hiding illegal liquor in your bootleg, as I recall it.

There was nothing in this fan film (according to the producer) that was original material, so nothing was bootlegged.

The term “cover” has also come up.

In a “cover”, one band/singer plays the music of another band/singer.

I haven’t completely verified this, but I always understood that those were done because the original musicians were a minority who were subject to commercial discrimination (stores wouldn’t carry records by certain races, for example…or perhaps, if they did, they would put them in what was literally called a “race music” section, where they wouldn’t sell to the mainstream). You need an “acceptable” face to put on the cover of the album…so someone else would record what was often a pretty faithful version of the original.

That also extended to radio stations not playing music.

“Covers” have later lost that sense of “covering up” the original artist.

Power/Rangers is also not a cover. In the original use of “covers”, the original songs were licensed…even though those contracts might arguably have been exploitative, they still existed. They were done with some sort of legally defensible authorization.

Power/Rangers does not duplicate a Power Rangers episode shot for shot, which a cover would do (or would nearly do).

It’s a brand new story line.

It is a parody.

I understand YouTube taking down the video, and I believe they have a legal right to do so.

The chilling effect does concern me a bit, though. Some companies (studios, publishers) and some authors go after parodies, and can influence distributors into not carrying them, and artists into not creating them.

I want people to feel free to criticize politicians and popular culture works through the use of parody…free, at least, from legal prosecution.

I don’t mind if they have to fight for distribution…just as creators of non-parodies do.

Interestingly, Adi Shankar is not “just a fan”. Shankar is a legitimate commercial producer, including such projects as Lone Survivor with Mark Wahlberg, Dredd with Karl Urban, and The Grey with Liam Neeson.

Shankar could fight this, and might have the power to do so.

I don’t see a path where the Supreme Court would rule that a store/distribution platform would have to carry a specific parody.

I can see something that might make companies less willing to go after fanfic and fan films, if this becomes a headache and a public relations black eye.

No author will get a cease and desist from a publisher because of a Kindle Worlds title.

Yes, the rightsholders get to set up rules for the world if they want, and if a work doesn’t fit it, well, you’d have to go a different route.

Still, there’s a lot in the Power/Rangers story that could impact us readers.

What do you think?

What’s your favorite literary parody (at AmazonSmile*)? Bored of the Rings, perhaps? What should Amazon do if a rightsholder challenges a book on copyright grounds? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

where you can see all 23 books selected so far, both the ten which can be pre-ordered now, and the thirteen “in production now”. The latter includes Housebroken by The Behrg, so we can’t link yet, as we said we would do (when possible) when we published this

Outside of that, I’m not finding any easy way to find them in the Kindle store.

Searching for “Kindle Scout” just gets you Kindle books with the word “Scout” in the title, that sort of thing.

I can’t find an “aisle” for Kindle Scout in the Kindle store yet…either on my phone or on my computer.

My guess is that they just haven’t built it, but that they will.

I would.

I would want Kindle Scout to be a brand for Amazon customers, not just for readers who participate as Kindle Scouts, and authors who are part of the program.

There is an argument to be made (isn’t there always?) that you want the books to be seen as being just like any other book. After all, they don’t put out “various artists” albums of American Idol winners (“American Idol’s Greatest Hits”).

The books can be promoted as individual books by individual authors, and it can be promoted as a group brand…by putting a link on the e-books homepage, by linking on each of the product pages for the individual books, maybe by doing a “sampler”, and so on.

The fact that a book was discovered by Amazon through Kindle Scout should be a plus for buyers and readers.

I make that differentiation (buyers and readers), because these books will be available through

I might try one there…hm, not quite sure how the payment for these authors will be impacted by a borrow. For independently published authors using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, it can be better (sometimes, significantly better) to have your book borrowed rather than sold, depending on the price. The higher the price, the better the borrow is by comparison. That’s because you get the same price for each borrow as an indie, regardless of the list price.

Remember that you can’t “pre-borrow” a book…if you plan to get it from Kindle Unlimited, you need to wait until it has been released (March 3rd, in this case).

It will be interesting to see how these do in terms of sales (and reviews)…I’ll check on them later to see.

What do you think? Are you going to buy any of these? Sample them? Borrow them through Kindle Unlimited or the KOLL (Kindle Owners’ Lending Library)? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

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While I don’t generally pre-order Kindle store books myself, I know many of you do.

I understand the fun of just having the book show up, but I figure I’ll order when I want it…since I could have it within a minute, usually.…

However, it’s worth noting that pre-ordering at a low price will tend to preserve that price. Back when the Agency Model was solidly in place, Amazon couldn’t guarantee that books sold by the publishers using that structure wouldn’t go up in price after you pre-ordered them. It wasn’t likely, it was just that Amazon couldn’t control it. We have started to return to the Agency Model, but Amazon is allowed to discount in some circumstances…I’ll have to dig into that effect.

These aren’t necessarily the most popular of the pre-orders…I’m just going to list ones that catch my eye. Since we might not agree on that, here’s a link to the 6,122 (at time of writing) February releases in the USA Kindle store:

Since Prime members can already be reading two of these (even though they aren’t officially released until October) at no additional cost, you can see how that would drive up their popularity as compared to actual pre-orders. The top four being Kindle First was also true the last time I did one of these.

The other thing is that there are some Kindle Unlimited titles way up on the list. I’m concerned (and I’ve alerted Amazon about it) that people are confused: they think they are pre-ordering a KU borrow, when they are actually pre-ordering a purchase. In other words, they may be thinking they’ll get the book at no additional cost, and actually be charged for it. Amazon has confirmed for me: you can not pre-order a borrow from KU.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

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One of the most important resources an Kindle owner has is the Manage Your Kindle page.

Well, that used to be true…now it’s called the “Manage Your Content and Devices.” 🙂

I assume that’s because the new tablets aren’t called “Kindle Fires” any more, but simply “Fires”.

Not only that, other devices appear as well…my Fire Phone, our Fire TV, our Fire TV stick. I’m guessing our Amazon Echo will appear there as well, although it hasn’t yet (our delivery date still has, as the early end, the end of May).

Whatever you call it, I like to check in on this page from time to time, to see if anything has changed…and it often has.

One thing to note before I get into it: what you see and what I see may not be quite the same.

Amazon is big on “A/B testing”: you give different people different interfaces (and sometimes, different features), to see how well they work and how much people like them.

It’s usually not huge: it could be that a button appears on the top for me, and on the side for you.

Also, which browser you use may matter. I’m using Maxthon, my browser of preference, although I also use Chrome, Internet Explorer, Silk, and SeaMonkey.

We all get to the page the same way, though. I’ll give you the shortest URL (Uniform or Universal Resource Locator…web address), although there are others:

For me, I see three tabs, and a link to Help. I’ll take them in the order they appear for me:

Your Content

This is where I see things I’ve purchased (including for free) from Amazon on this account, personal documents I’ve uploaded, and resources they give me (like dictionaries for the Kindle).

The first thing I see are two dropdown menus for “Show”.

The first one of those defaults to “Books”, and then gives me these other choices:

Books (purchased from the Kindle store)

Kindle Unlimited (you may not have that if you aren’t a member…it shows me which books I’ve borrowed under that plan)

Newspapers

Magazines

Blogs

Audiobooks

Music

Apps

Instant Video

Docs (personal documents I’ve uploaded)

Active Content (games and apps for non-Fire Kindles)

Dictionaries & User Guides (provided by Amazon)

Pending Deliveries

Next to that is a dropdown menu which says “All”. That presumably modifies the choices you make in the first dropdown, and not all choices will apply to all content categories. For Books, I see:

All

Purchases (including free)

Samples (this is relatively new, that samples are stored in the Cloud)

Rentals (yes, you can rent books…textbooks)

Loans

Borrows (this is showing me Kindle Unlimited…and ones I got from public libraries)

The next thing I get is a way to sort what shows:

Purchase Date: Newest-Oldest (default)

Title: A-Z

Title: Z-A

Author: A-Z

Author: Z-A

Purchase Date: Oldest-Newest

New here is a toggle to “Show Family Library” or “Hide Family Library”. When it is toggled to “Show”, you can Add to Library and Remove from Library.

There is also a search box you can use to search items

For individual books (or other content), there is a checkbox. When I check a book, I can then Deliver it somewhere or Delete it. I can check more than one book, and take the same action on multiple books (although I’ve heard from people that it can get overwhelmed…I’ve heard of a limit of ten at a time, but I have not tested that recently).

NOTE: if you delete a book from your Cloud, you are surrendering the licence for which you paid (or which you got free). If you do that, and anyone who is on your account now or may be on your account in the future wants to read that book, they’ll have to purchase it again…if it is still available.

I don’t delete books from the Cloud…it would be like throwing out a paperbook.

I know some people do, though.

This ability is one of the reasons why you have to know the account username and password to get into MYK. Many people have accounts set up where some people are “users” and other people are “managers” (that’s just my name for it). The managers have access to MYK; the users don’t.

In addition to “Deliver” and “Delete”, there are buttons for actions on individual books.

Tapping one (I’m using a touchscreen device…you might be clicking it), I can see

I use every day (mine is named “HDXter”, which I pronounce like “H-Dexter”), I see first a dropdown for Device Actions:

Deregister

Set as default device

Remote Alarm (this is nice…even if the volume is turned off, you can make your HDX make a not entirely unpleasant beeping noise…so you can find it if it is lost around the house. If you do find it, you can stop the beeping…otherwise, it goes for two minutes. You will, I assume, need to have wireless on for that to work)

Find Your Tablet (this will actually locate it physically…I just tried it, and it was quite close…certainly close enough so I would know it was at home)

Remote Lock (could be useful if someone steals your device…but they may not connect it to wireless)

Remote Factory Reset (this would wipe everything off your device, including personal files you put on it…system software updates you had done would not be affected)

Those last three or four might also be used by account managers to…work with account users. For example, a legal guardian could hypothetically lock a child’s device…or see if the device is at home where it was “supposed to be”, rather than, say, at the park…

Then I see

Email address (editable)

Special Offers status (editable…that wasn’t on the K1 above, because it didn’t do Special Offers)

Country Settings (you can see where they think you live, and you could change it…but you still need to have something that evidenced where you live, such as the country location of your bank. This has to do with copyright and licensing)

Households and Family Library: you can add 1 adult here who is not on your account to share books, apps, games, and audiobooks…both of you have to be present when you are doing that. You can also add up to four children

Newsstand Subscription Settings (there is a link here to Manage Your Subscriptions, such as unsubscribing or changing a payment method…changing your 1-click above does not change the payment method for a subscription)

Kindle Unlimited Settings (you can unsubscribe here, and it tells you when you next payment will be)

Device Synchronization (it’s good to have this on if you read the same book on different devices, like a tablet and a phone. If two people on the same account read the same book at the same time on different devices ((which we do sometimes)) it’s good to keep this off)

Automatic Book Update (you can turn this off…if it’s on, and an update comes out for a book, it will just happen without asking you…I keep this off)

Language Optimized Storefront (you can currently choose English or Spanish)

Personal Document Settings (you can edit the e-mail addresses for your devices here), turn on or off Personal Document Archiving (I keep this on….it means that if I use “Send-to-Kindle”, the document will be added to the Cloud so it is available to other devices on the account), Whispernet Delivery Options (you can choose whether or not your personal documents will deliver over 3G/4G if you have it, or just on wi-fi…you could be charged for a 3G/4G delivery), and the Approved Personal Document E-mail List (you choose here what e-mail addresses are allowed to send documents to your devices…prevents “spam”). There is also a list of your previous charges here

A link to Manage Whispercast Settings (Whispercast is a special service designed for businesses and organizations)

A link to Your AmazonLocal Vouchers

The last thing on this page is Your Recently Viewed Items and Featured Recommendations…the key thing here is that you can view or edit your browsing history at the botttom

Whew!

As you can tell, there is a lot of “self service” provided by Amazon! Good self service can be part of excellent customer service.

If you have any questions or thoughts about this, feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Well, Amazon has fudged that a bit by including more than one book for the same movie. 🙂

There are also many other books on which movies have been based which are available at Amazon…large numbers of them for free (public domain titles, like Dracula, Moby Dick, and so on).

Still, this is an interesting set.

The fact that a movie was made from a book does say something about it.

Even though the movie may be significantly different from the book (and that can be a good or bad thing), there is still something in the book that got people to put money into an adaptation.

Let’s take a look at the options in this sale…remember to check the price before you click or tap that Buy button. Prices are for today, and may not apply in your country.

Life of Pi
Yann Martel
4.3 out of 5 stars | 6,020 customer reviews
Movie: Life of Pi (2012)
Oscar wins (I presume this sale is to tie into the Oscars tomorrow): Directing; Cinematography; Score; Visual Effects
Additional Oscar nominations: Best Picture; Adapted Screenplay; Editing; Sound Mixing; Sound Editing; Original Song; Production Design
Available as part of Kindle Unlimited

The Princess Bride
by William Goldman
4.5 stars | 1380 reviews
Movie: The Princess Bride (1987)
Oscar wins: none
Additional Oscar nominations: Best Score
Available as part of Kindle Unlimited

All the King’s Men
by Robert Penn Warren
4.3 stars | 328 reviews
Movie: All the King’s Men (1949)
Oscar wins: Best Picture; Best Actor; Best Actress
Additional Oscar nominations: Supporting Actor; Director; Writing; Editing
Movie (2): All the King’s Men (2006)
Oscar wins: none
Additional Oscar nominations: none
Available as part of Kindle Unlimited

The Boxtrolls
by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
Note: this is not the book credited as the source of the movie…that’s Here Be Monsters by Alan Snow
4.8 stars | 10 reviews
Movie: The Boxtrolls
Oscar wins: too soon to tell (nominated this year)
Additional Oscar nominations: Animated Feature

but this is where we stand right now on our group predictions for this year’s Adapted Screenplay Oscar:

The Imitation Game (Graham Moore): 76% chance

The Theory of Everything (Anthony McCarten): 73% chance

Whiplash (Damien Chazelle): 60% chance

American Sniper (Jason Hall): 47% chance

Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson): 44% chance

Don’t like the group’s predictions? There is still to play in this free game! 😉

What do you think? What is your favorite movie adaptation of a book? Is there a movie you think was better than the book? What book do you still think should be made into a movie which hasn’t been? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

You can install apps from places outside Amazon…contrary to what you might hear, Amazon is quite open to you using “competitors'” products. It’s a simple settings change, to allow installation of apps from “unknown sources”.

Naturally, you assume the risk for doing that…the apps will not have been vetted by Amazon to make sure they work and won’t damage your tablet.

I only do it with very few apps, where I trust the studios.

In this case, it was Zinio, which I use to read Fortean Times (which Amazon does not carry), and Maxthon, which is my browser of choice.

Well, after the updates, neither of them would launch!

They appeared to be on the device, but when I would try to open them, they just wouldn’t.

I tried a few troubleshooting things on my own:

I tried restarting the device

I tried opening them both from the Carousel and from the Apps tab

I tried clearing the cache and force stopping them

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Maxthon

I finally cleared the data on Maxthon…that’s not too bad with that program, since my “favorites” are all stored on their server. The only thing I lost was my “Quick Access” choices…that’s not hard to fix

I downloaded Maxthon fresh from their website

Since none of that worked, I called Mayday.

At first, it was clearly baffling.

Some things would indicate it was on the device, some wouldn’t. For example, there was an icon on the Carousel (with an exclamation point on it…a trouble indicator). It showed on the Cloud tab, not on the device tab. Now, an item can be on the Carousel and not be downloaded, but things were just weird.

Finally, the Mayday rep suggesting syncing with Amazon. I hadn’t thought of that…since Zinio isn’t stored in Amazon’s Cloud. I did get Maxthon from there at some point, when it was available.

That did it!

Don’t ask me why, but after a simple sync, they were both fine.

I’m going to go with what’s called the Engineer’s Law or the Law of Pragmatism: “If it works, it’s true.” 😉

I think Mayday is great for people who are not techies, but even for someone who is quite knowledgeable like me, it can be terrific.

KindleReunion.com

Sometimes, I get comments on very old posts…so most people will never see them.

One of the main reasons someone steals something like a Kindle is to get personal information and in other ways take advantage of the person who lost it.

kindlereunion arranges a connection between a Kindle loser and an apparent finder…and it seems to me they share your e-mail address.

You put in your serial number and an e-mail address as a loser. Another person, who is a finder, puts in a serial number and their e-mail address. The site says

“Once the system finds a match, both parties will receive an e-mail so they can arrange the exchange of the Kindle.”

So, here’s the scenario:

You are at the airport, and someone steals your Kindle while you are going through Security.

Naturally, you have it password protected and you deregister it and have it blacklisted (as indicated in the post on which you commented).

They enter the serial number as a finder.

kindlereunion (and my intuition is that their heart is in the right place) e-mails you both (after you enter as a finder), and connects you two.

The thief then has a number of ways to go.

“I’m on the other side of the country. Why don’t I just mail it to you? What’s your address?”

“Let’s meet and I can give it to you.”

“I’d send it to you, but I don’t have the cash to mail it. See, I put in an airport locker, but I lost the key. They want $40 to replace the key before they’ll give it to me.”

You can probably imagine a lot of other scenarios…

That’s why a recovery service like ReturnMe maybe worth it…it protects your personal information. TrackItBack, unfortunately, is out of business at this point (it’s been about five years since I wrote that post).”

A new Dr. Seuss

Following on the heels of the announcement of a never before published Harper Lee novel (written before To Kill A Mockingbird…I would consider it an early draft which was massively revised, based on what I’ve heard):

It’s coming in August, and while a Kindle edition is not yet available for pre-order, my guess is that one will show up soon. I’ll link to the page for one you can pre-order, and eventually, a Kindle edition is likely to be linked on that page:

I’m not hearing a lot of controversy about this one, like there has been about Go Set a Watchman (some people worry that Harper Lee doesn’t fully understand or approve of what is happening…my guess at this point is that is unlikely), but the provenance on this one is very different as laid out in this

I also tested it out myself…seems to work fine for the simple purpose of reading blogs.

Adding subscriptions was a snap, and you download for offline reading, share, and use a white on black viewing mode, if you want.

Now, I’m always very grateful to people who subscribe to this blog through the Kindle store. That ninety-nine cents a month (well, my cut is about thirty cents) is honestly one of the things which makes the blog possible…thanks, subscribers!

However, Amazon still doesn’t make the blogs available to tablet users. I’m sure some of my readers are still paying the ninety-nine cents a month just to support me, and reading the blog on a Fire.

If they do that, I want to give them a good experience.

I do love Flipboard, but if all you want to do is read blogs, well, gReader seems like a good way to go.

What do you think? Are you excited for a new Dr. Seuss? Have you had a great Mayday story? Did you lose a Kindle…and then have the finder return it? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

In some ways, it’s about Amazon’s positioning as knowledgeable about books…knowledgeable and credible, which are not synonyms. You can be knowledgeable and have no one believe you (ask Cassandra), and you can be credible without having a lot of knowledge on a topic.

When I’ve trained trainers, I’ve even taught the latter…how to be credible.

A few quick notes on that:

Use numbers…that always impresses people. For example, if I was teaching an Excel class many years ago, I could be in front of people who thought they knew Excel quite well. I could say (back then), “There are 256 columns in Excel…does anyone know how many rows? 65,536.” That gave me instant credibility…even if it was just a memorized fact. It doesn’t have to be a complicated number: “There were seven castaways on Gilligan’s Island.” That may get people counting to confirm…and when they do, they are impressed with you

When in doubt, use big words. That also makes you sound credible…not approachable or relatable, necessarily, but it does help with credibility. 🙂 That’s only true if you use them correctly…well, if somebody knows what the word actually means, that is. I have to reset my reaction when someone uses the word “decimated” (often “absolutely decimated” or “completely decimated”) to indicate a nearly complete reduction. “Decimated” technically means “reduced by one tenth”. If there were 100 soldiers, and you reduced it to ninety, you decimated that group. At least, that’s what it used to mean…my now adult kid who is a linguist has convinced me that it is usage that matters. I still have the emotional reaction, but I can reset it 🙂

Use the jargon. I work with medical folks, and when I can use a word that they use appropriately, it really ups my credibility

Speak quickly. Again, this is just when you are establishing credibility, not when you are training a concept. Most people don’t think you can lie at high speeds…that you have to think about what you are saying too much. If you excitedly say something, smashingallthewordstogether, people will think you are being honest. Don’t believe me? Try saying something really slowly and deliberately out loud…it will likely sound even to you like you are lying

Be imperfect. Pause, use an “um”, look to the ceiling (up to the left, typically), laugh at yourself for what you just said…those can all make you seem genuine, and not rehearsed

Now, clearly, you can’t just follow techniques to gain credibility…you need to be reacting in the moment and have empathy for what your audience is feeling.

That said, I come across as credible in person…and it can be a problem for me.

I’ve been a boss.

I’ve said to people something like, “Now, I don’t know yet if this is going to happen, so don’t hold me to it, but it’s possible that we are going to xyz.” I’ve then had people telling others we were going to xyz, and saying, “Bufo said so.”

That means I have to be careful about what I say. 🙂

I was being observed by one of my favorite managers, and in debriefing a class, the manager said at one point, “Then you did that hypnosis thing you do,” and just went on to another point.

I said something like, “Wait, what? What hypnosis thing?”

I realized later that I do use something like “guided imagery”.

Never, by the way, for nefarious reasons!

It’s just as important and difficult (sometimes) to make people believe in something which is true and good for them as it is to make them believe in something which is false and bad for them.

That said, let’s talk about this list. 🙂

I do like biographies and memoirs, but I like a lot of things. 😉

Here’s the list from Amazon, and whether or not I’ve read them:

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers: no

A Long Way Home by Ishmael Beah: yes

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway: no

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson: no

American Caesar by William Manchester: no

American Lion by Jon Meacham: no

American Prometheus by Kai Bird: no

American Sniper by Chris Kyle: no

American Sphinx by Joseph J. Ellis: no

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt: no

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank: yes

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy: no

Autobiography of Mark Twain by Mark Twain: yes

Ball Four by Jim Bouton: no

Black Boy by Richard Wright: no

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin: yes

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin: no

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall: no

Bossypants by Tina Fey: no

Cash by Johnny Cash: no

Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie: no

Chronicles by Bob Dylan: no

Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert: no

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose: no

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron: no

De Profundis and Other Personal Writings by Oscar Wilde: no

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller: no

Dorothy Parker by Marion Meade: no

Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama: no

Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp: no

Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston: no

E-Mc~2 by David Bodanis: no

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert: no

Endurance by Alfred Lansing: no

Everybody Was So Young by Amanda Vaill: no

Helen Keller: The Story of My Life by Helen Keller: yes

I Am Malala by mlala Yousafzai: no

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou: no

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer: no

Just Kids by Patti Smith: no

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain: no

Knock Wood by Candice Bergen: no

Life by Keith Richards: no

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela: no

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: no

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens: no

My Life in France by Julia Child: no

Naked by David Sedaris: no

Napoleon by Andrew Roberts: no

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass: no

Night by Elie Wiesel: no

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin: no

On the Road by Jack Kerouac: no

Open by Andre Agassi: no

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen: no

Personal History by Katharine Graham: no

Robert A. Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro: no

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs: no

Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford: no

Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand: no

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher by Timothy Egan: no

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov: no

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson: no

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman: no

Tennessee Williams by John Lahr: no

The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone: no

The Andy Warhol Diaries by Andy Warhol: no

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein: no

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X: no

The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll: no

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: no

The Color of Water by James McBride: no

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman: no

The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi: no

The Diary of Anais Nin by Anais Nin: no

The Diary of Frida Kahlo by Carlos Fuentes: no

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls: no

The Gulag Archipeligo by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: no

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot: no

The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans: no

The Last Lone Inventor by Evan I. Schwartz: no

The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr: no

The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara: no

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester: no

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris: no

The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder: no

The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer: no

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston: no

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion: no

This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff: no

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow: no

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson: no

Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck: no

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand: no

Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes: no

Updike by Adam Begley: no

Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff: no

West with the Night by Beryl Markham: no

Wild Swans by Jung Chang: no

Wild by Cheryl Strayed: no

Well, I’ve only read five of these, but I have to say, I was very impressed with some of them. The Helen Keller book is amazing. A Long Way Home was devastating, but great. The Mark Twain book was so modern and so clever.

Certainly, though, there are many others I might list which I have read and which in some small way, let me live someone else’s life for a while.

Amazon knows that, and one of the synergies of their having purchased the social reading website Goodreads, is that they can do a curated list like the above and let people contribute to a crowd sourced one…which they have done:

Without at all claiming that they are the best, here are some other biographies/memoirs which come to mind for me:

A Zoo in My Luggage by Gerald Durrell…and indeed, several of the Durrell books (not available for the Kindle)

A Job for Superman by Kirk Alyn…Alyn was Superman in the serials, and this book has some great stories! I bought it from Alyn at a science fiction convention, and that may have colored my perception of it. 🙂 Still, I remember some of the stories easily. There was one where Alyn is talking about a scene carrying, I think, Lois Lane out of a burning building down steps. “Action!” Runs down the steps, but they have to reshoot the scene (smoke or something). Another take. Another problem. Another take. Another take. Another take. Eventually, the director says, “Superman, you’re slowing down.” Alyn explains that the actor is heavy, and the director says something like, “Actor? You’re supposed to be carrying a dummy!” That was part of the perception of Alyn on set as being Superman. Two more. 🙂 Superman is animated flying, but they are standing around (very common on a set). Alyn asks what is happening, and they say they are trying to figure out how Superman is going to take off. Alyn, who was a ballet dancer, says, “I can jump over the camera.” Well, this is a tall camera! They don’t believe their star, but Alyn does it. Alyn points out, amused, that Superman takes off from a ballet position. 😉 The last one was when They did have to do a close up of Superman flying. What they did was build a chest plate with wires, and Alyn would lay in it with legs (and hips) held straight out. That’s right…the plate didn’t get to Alyn’s hips! Picture doing that for a minute or more while they did the shot. Better, lie down on a table with your hips off the edge and try it…

Books by John A. Keel and Hans Holzer…very different people, very different writing style, sort of connected both writing about “paranormal” things. They are both field investigators and both bring you a feel for what it is like being there

What do you think? What are your favorite biographies and memoirs? I know people who say they don’t like to read non-fiction…what books do you think would convince them? These sorts of books also fit into Common Core…does this show the value of that program? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

Bonus deal: pre-pay for three months of Sling TV ($20 a month) and get a Fire TV Stick for free, or $50 off a Fire TV!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Like this:

“…it is our expression that there are no positive differences: that all things are like a mouse and a bug in the heart of a cheese. Mouse and a bug: no two things could seem more unlike. They’re there a week, or they stay there a month: both are then only transmutations of cheese. I think we’re all bugs and mice, and are only different expressions of an all-inclusive cheese.

Or that red is not positively different from yellow: is only another degree of whatever vibrancy yellow is a degree of: that red and yellow are continuous, or that they merge in orange.

So then that, if, upon the basis of yellowness and redness, Science should attempt to classify all phenomena, including all red things as veritable, and excluding all yellow things as false or illusory, the demarcation would have to be false and arbitrary, because things colored orange, constituting continuity, would belong on both sides of the attempted borderline.

As we go along, we shall be impressed with this:

That no basis for classification, or inclusion and exclusion, more reasonable than that of redness and yellowness has ever been conceived of.

Science has, by appeal to various bases, included a multitude of data. Had it not done so, there would be nothing with which to seem to be. Science has, by appeal to various bases, excluded a multitude of data. Then, if redness is continuous with yellowness: if every basis of admission is continuous with every basis of exclusion, Science must have excluded some things that are continuous with the accepted. In redness and yellowness, which merge in orangeness, we typify all tests, all standards, all means of forming an opinion—

Or that any positive opinion upon any subject is illusion built upon the fallacy that there are positive differences to judge by—

That the quest of all intellection has been for something—a fact, a basis, a generalization, law, formula, a major premise that is positive: that the best that has ever been done has been to say that some things are self-evident—whereas, by evidence we mean the support of something else—

When I am asked for my philosophy of life, I sometimes respond that I am a Fortean.

What is a Fortean?

A follower of Charles Fort, who I have quoted above.

Saying you are a Fortean, though, is always a bit of a joke.

You see, according to Fort, you can’t really “be” anything to the exclusion of anything else.

Everything is simply a different degree of everything else…there are no hard and fast “things” in Fort’s writings.

Start with a Fortean, and eventually, you’ll find an element that takes you to “another” philosophy, and from that one to another, and then another, and another, and eventually, you end up back with your Fortean.

Fort said, “One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.” That’s the source of the name of one of my other blogs, “The Measured Circle”. Unlike this one, which does have some artificial constraints on subject matter, I write about whatever I want there. 🙂

This is a joke I wrote years ago: “Question: why did the Fortean cross the road? Answer: there aren’t two sides.”

Let’s say there was a North side and a South side. If you stand exactly in the middle where are you…North or South? If neither, how do you define that middle? Can’t you keep widening it, until both sides are considered as one?

That’s a whole lot of philosophy to get to the point of this post. 😉

Right now, most people have unbreachable, rigid concepts which separate, say, a book and a movie.

In the future, though, will that continue to be true?

If I asked you to define a movie, you would probably come up with something about a moving visual image.

Some books have that now…from animated covers to enhanced editions which may actually include movie clips and other videos.

Let’s say there is an enhanced edition of a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., which includes video of the I Have a Dream speech.

Is that not a book?

Even if 80% of the book is the written word?

You would probably define a book as something about, well, written words.

When you are reading subtitles in a foreign language movie, is that a book?

Most people would immediately say no.

It’s a movie…with subtitles.

That enhanced e-book? It’s a book…with video.

What is an audiobook?

I tend to think of an audiobook as just as much a book as a p-book (paperbook).

It’s still the author’s words…you are just consuming them differently.

If someone is print disabled and listens to the great works of classical literature, do you not consider them well-read?

As technology expands, I think the lines will blur.

We may come to expect the ability to see video in books.

We may also find it natural to pause a movie of Alice in Wonderland and bring up the text of the corresponding chapter to the scene which we are watching.

We might pick up again after the scene we read, or continue where we left off.

Part of it might be an opera.

Now, I have to admit, this really appeals to me, but I like lots of things happening at once…I like to say that I love chaos. 🙂

Most people don’t.

I would guess most of you would not want your books, especially your fiction books, to have video, audio, and more.

However…

You are fine with italics and bold, which are visual effects.

You may be okay with a map being in a book, or a “family tree” for a complex multiple generation work.

Do you like footnotes, endnotes, and/or cross references?

What if instead of having things like, “Said Pat”, there was a little picture of the speaker at the beginning of each paragraph of dialogue?

What if the picture moved?

What about a separate font color for each of ten characters? That would be expensive to do in the old days, but not so expensive for an e-book on a tablet.

I’m really just ruminating on this, but I think books will become much more dynamic than they are now, with more interactivity and more media.

Not every book, and not for every person. There is a certain…calmness in just reading the printed word.

I just don’t know how long that’s going to be the popular mainstream, though…

What do you think? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

When I was a kid, we got Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday as two different holidays.

That mattered to me, because my birthday happens to be the same as Abraham Lincoln’s. That meant that my birthday was always a day off from school…and we could invite my friends to a party accordingly. 😉

Then, they decided that having two Presidential holidays was too much, so they combined it into one day honoring all of the Presidents.

I still took my birthday off this year, though. 🙂

So, in case a day of scholarly reflection on and discussion of our Chiefs of State (that’s how you spent the day, right?) 😉 whetted your appetite for more, I thought I’d take a look at the Kindle store to look for the most reviewed books about the Presidents. Note: I did do a bit of choosing to get a book which really focused on the President, or at least not on several Presidents. Otherwise Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln would have shown up for several Presidents as the most reviewed in the search. 😉

George Washington: George Washington’s Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution
by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger

John Adams:
John Adams
by David McCullough

Thomas Jefferson: Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
by Jon Meacham

James Madison: James Madison: A Life Reconsidered
by Lynne Cheney

James Monroe: The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness
by Harlow Giles Unger

John Quincy Adams: John Quincy Adams
by Harlow Giles Unger

Andrew Jackson: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
by Jon Meacham

That was fun and interesting! I tried to avoid books labeled as fiction, and I’m guessing I did. I wouldn’t have thought that the President who wrote a book on another President and who had two books on this list would have been…George W. Bush. If I’d thought about it, I might have gotten that, though. Jimmy Carter is another President with a book on the list. One reason for that might be that more recent books tend to be reviewed more…just the nature of when book reviews became possible at Amazon, and that people don’t tend to write reviews of books they read a long time ago.

This is a good deal which might be ending today on more than ten Disney apps…in some cases half off, in some cases two thirds off.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book you have read on a President? I stayed away from fiction, but what about something with a President as a character in fiction? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

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